NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOUR LOAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8263, 23 May 1890, Page 5

NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOUR LOAN.

SIR DILLON BELL AND THE BONDHOLDERS. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington, Thursday. The Agent-General is severely taken to task this evening by the Post for his speech to the New Plymouth bondholders in the following terms :—" We hope there is an error in the cable message which represents that Sir Dillon Bell, in the interview with the New Plymouth Harbour bondholders, expressed a hope that the land laws, of which complaint was made, would bo altered. The Agent-Gene-ral has no right to entertain any hope of the kind, bub if he even was foolish enough to cherish a fallacious idea, he had still less right to express it publicly. He should keep it locked in the moat secret recesses of his breast. The bondholders have evidently approached the Agent-General as the official representative of the New Zealand Government, and as such he should not hold out the most remote hope to them of the Government ad mitting that either by land legislation or in any other way the colony is in the least responsible for the default made by the Harbour Board. The Taranaki people have persistently tried to fix on the colony a liability for this harbour loan on the plea that the Board's endowment of 25 per cent, of the land revenue was injuriously affected by the general land legislation of the New Zealand Parliament. On the other hand, Parliament has as consistently refused to admit the plea for a moment, or to accept a scintilla of liability. In this, Parliament has undoubtedly been supported by public opinion outside Taranaki. Sir Dillon 801 l must be perfectly aware of what has taken place in the House session after session on this subject, and of the utter hopelessness of imagining that Parliament will admit its liability for this or any other of the Harbour Board loans in which default may be threatened, or that it will consent to exceptional land legislation for Taranaki, in order to benefit the New Plymouth Harbour Board at the expense of the rest of the colony. Sir Dillon Bell, as Agent-General, should not have given an appearance of approval or of sympathy with any argument pub forward to throw responsibility in this matter on the Legislature. He should have made the deputation thoroughly understand the true position Of affairs, instead of encouraging any fallacious hopes. We trust that fuller information will show that he did so, and that the cable has misrepresented him."